This year I volunteered to help with décor at our church MOPS group. May I start off by saying that this is one of the most amazing groups of women I have ever had the pleasure of serving, loving, laughing and doing life with...ever!?? Seriously.

Anyway, we decided to simplify décor this year by only doing four basic themes based on each season versus previous years of creating a different decorative theme for each meeting.

This year's national MOPS theme is "A Beautiful Mess: Embracing Your Story". I'll have to write more about that later...but, it really is a beautiful theme.

{PAUSE} Just a bit of backstory here before I go any further...

I was approached last year to lead a table at MOPS. With hesitation, I accepted and while the year was a challenge for me for many reasons, I am SO happy that I was able to lead in that capacity.

This year, I was asked by our group's coordinator to consider being a part of the hospitality team. At that time, I didn't even know if I wanted or would be able to be a part of MOPS at all with such crazy sports schedules, church involvement, etc. but after talking to the hubs and a bit of prayer, I decided to go for it.

Honestly, why wouldn't I want to do it? Having the ability to use my creative talents to bless other moms? Yes, please!

Sooooo...when I finally had the "go" from hubby and Jesus, I had about a week left to decide what the first meeting would look like. I then went back to the theme...

"A Beautiful Mess..." I was stumped for a few days. Yes, a few days that I didn't have.

Funny, there's always that moment that I am freaking out on the inside. I'm always waiting for that time that my brain just won't kick in and the ideas just won't make it through and everything fails. It hasn't happened yet...thank you, Jesus.

Then...it came. The "aha! moment".

I decided that I would take lots of naturally beautiful but messy elements add a few pops of color and go from there. Honestly, it still hadn't all come together in my mind but I had to get started. At that point, there were only a few days left. Insane.

I knew I wanted to use moss, wood, burlap...so I gathered those things and got on Pinterest, looked through old magazines...anything for inspiration.

I used sheet moss, wooden letters I purchased from a local craft store and some planks I found in our garage to create a sign for the welcome table. This is how it turned out. I really needed another board on top for the "a" but didn't have another and didn't have time to make a trip to the hardware store after my 20th to the craft store so I decided this was okay for now.

I used two different stains on the wood. Rustoleum in Kona and Varathane Driftwood. Both just happen to be my favorite stains right now.

I am also in charge of centerpieces so I decided to use Mason jars {They will never get old}covered with burlap, filled with moss and topped off with mini buntings for a little bit of color on each table. I also added frames with an inspiration quote and all sorts of other goodies that I didn't get to snap a pic of so I will have to post those another time and hopefully upload a tutorial for some of it for those of you interested in doing some of this beautifully messy stuff!

A little bit of flower foam, moss, scrapbooking paper, dowels, burlap and a jar and voila! You've got a centerpiece. In keep with the Beautiful Mess theme, I added moss to each jar in different textures and shades.

Do you spy that blue jar? Yum.

Hoping to post a few tips and tutorials on the sign and the jars within the next week!